I feel I might have done a disservice to this thread by suggesting the idea of a "banner ad at every chapter head or end." Clearly, this would represent a "worst case" advertising method, as we all agree.
However, in all fairness, this would be the least likely way to advertise in a book, because:
- Every book is different, with different chapters and/or breaks;
- It would be too much trouble to insert an ad at every chapter/break;
- A different number of ads for every book would be much harder to keep track of;
- It would be far easier to insert ads at the beginning or end of the novel (every novel has one of each, in the same place every time).
So I think we can all rest assured that we're not likely to see that ad method. Besides, any publisher that actually tried it would be attacked faster than Disney after the "limited-run DVD" fiasco.
Neko is right about something else: If existing publishers refuse to try something new, they may find new and independent publishers picking up the slack, and taking off with the e-book market. Advertisers can always pass on the old guard publishers, and go to the independents looking for a break (and therefore ready to experiment, even on the advertisers' terms). Wowio could be the model of e-books' future.